^ ,p 



26 FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT 



while in the same apiaries other colonies affected and not 

 so treated, continued bad for some time, but got rid of it as 

 soon as treated. 



Strong colonies of bees in the fall with a young laying 

 queen, and an abundance of good honey sealed or capped 

 by the bees, if properly cared for during winter whether in 

 'the cellar or in chaff hives, wintered out of doors in sheltered 

 location, seldom have pickled brood, chilled or other dead 

 brood, or dysentery, and are the colonies that give their 

 owner profit. 



BLACK BROOD. 



Black brood is another fatal and contagions disease 

 among bees, affecting the old bees as well as the brood. In 

 189S, 1899 and 1900 it destroyed several apiaries in New 

 York. Last year I found one case of it in Wisconsin, 

 which was quickly disposed of. Dr. Howard made more than 

 a thousand microscopical examinations and found it to be a 

 distinct form of bacteria. It is most active in sealed brood. 

 The bees affected continue to grow until they reach the pupa 

 stage, then turn black and die. At this stage there is a sour 

 smell. No decomposition from putrefactive germs in pickled 

 brood. In black brood the dark and rotten mass in time 

 breaks down and settles to lower side-wall of the cell, is of a 

 watery, granulated, syrupy fluid, jelly-like, is not ropy or 

 sticky as in foul brood, and has a peculiar smell, resembling 

 sour, rotten apples. Not even a house-fly will set a foot 

 upon it. 



TREATMENT. 



Best time is during a honey-flow, and the modified Mc- 

 Evoy plan, much as I have treated foul brood, by caging the 

 queen five days, remove the foundation starters and give full 

 sheets, keeping queen caged five days longer. As great care 

 should be taken of diseased hives, combs, honey, etc, as in 

 foul brood. 



DYSENTERY. 



Dysentery among bees in Wisconsin in the spring of the 

 year, often is quite serious. Many colonies die with it. Dys- 

 entery is the excrements of the old bees; it is of brownish 

 color, quite sticky and very disagreeable-smelHiig, and is 

 sometimes mistaken for foul brood. 



CAUSES. 



1. Bees confined too long in the hives, so that they can 

 no longer withhold their excrements, and are compelled to 

 void the same on the other bees and combs. 



2. Poor winter stores gathered in the fall from honey- 

 dew, cider-mills, sorghum mills, rotten fruit, also some kinds 

 of fall flowers. 



3. Old and especially moldy pollen or bee-bread. 



4. Hives too cold or damp. If moisture from the breath 

 of the bees is not carried out of the hive by some means, such 



